I really don't know how I was able to live without it, you know. I love my journada, but the addition of the funky little fold-up keyboard has pushed my feelings into the realm of adoration. I am now able to write in cafés in the time-honored ExpatriateWriterInEurope tradition, without resorting to a pen and notebook, which makes my wrists ache and renders my handwriting unintelligible after fifteen minutes. I hate having RSIs. I can never resist purchasing cool notebooks, either. I have an entire stack of them. I'll settle myself into a likely spot, work for twenty minutes or so. Then the pain and illegibility set in, and I give up and start haranguing the waiter for more wine. I just can't do it. If I were JK Rowling, the children of the world would be Potter-less. Not that I am. JK Rowling, that is: I've read Harry Potter. But I digress...

The other cool thing is that I don't have to spend today squinting at my barely legible notes, trying to remember what was discussed, and typing up the minutes. My minutes are finished; were finished as soon as the meeting was adjourned. All done, save downloading them into my laptop and subjecting them to a bit of proofreading. Yay me! Of course, I'll still have to print them out. Which will necessitate setting up the Evil Printer, which I hate and which hates me back just as much, near as I can tell. But I can deal. The minutes can wait until I've done the newsletter. The newsletter that is not due for ten whole days. Even better, I now have all the information I need to write the damn thing, unlike every single one of its predecessors. Except the location of the end-of-the-year luncheon, which Barbie is working on. Barbie is supposed to make the final arrangements this week, and email them to me as soon as she has done so. Which she will. This is the same Barbie who had to spend most of the year in the US, seeing to problems with her business. The same Barbie who returned, put together the plans and reservations for a stellar wine trip in ONE WEEK, emailed me with the information and a write-up and even websites for the newsletter (in case I wanted to add pictures), and brought professional-quality fliers to the Happy Hour the next night. Damn, she's good. I've really missed having Barbie around. Barbie is competent.

Maybe I'll even write the newsletter today. It's still raining. Hmm, better wait and study my Italian instead. My Italian studies have been suffering lately.

It was raining yesterday, when I left to go to the Board meeting. The meeting was at Barbie's apartment, which I'd never been to before. It has these amazing patterned floors. Very cool. I covet those floors. Barbie said that's why they took that particular place, along with the location. It's in the city center, but not quite as central as ours. Then again, nothing is as central as our apartment, really. She's in a real neighborhood, though. I like that area of town. It's near where I go to yoga.

P brought her kids. P's husband, who is Italian, emigrated to the US last week. He had to, under the terms of his visa. P, who is American, won't be able to leave until the beginning of June, so she's a single-mommy for a while. Frankie, who is all of two years old, wants my computer. His eyes lit up the minute I started unfolding the keyboard. According to his mom, Frankie loves computers, all computers. He's obsessed with them, and will spend hours on their desktop at home. Welcome to the future. Barbie gave him some markers and paper, but he was having none of that. He wanted a computer. No substitutes. He's a boy after my own heart. We spent the meeting making faces at each other across the table. The kid's got a fabulous laugh.

P also brought the infant, who, when he wasn't having lunch a la mommy, was passed around like a joint among all the other mommies whose babies aren't babies anymore. He was never passed my way, nor in the direction of Our Benevolent Dictator. We are childless, and possibly not to be trusted with something as precious as a three-month old. I had to type, in any case. Keep those minutes coming.

P would be happy to let me hold him, of course, and he would be happy to be held. He's a preternaturally well-behaved little fellow. But I don't know. Maybe if I did, my hormones would get to work, kick an über-fertile egg down the old fallopian tubes. That would be nice. On the other hand, I might start to cry, get all moony and depressed. It's a big risk to take. I'm pretty sanguine about the situation now, and am ready to take whatever God has planned for me. I'm not even sure that I really want to have kids, to be perfectly honest. It would be a big change in lifestyle, and that's an understatement. I have two nieces on my husband's side, and my brother is getting married soon and those two are bound to breed. But then again, you never know, do you? I've reached a state of acceptance, and I know that I'll probably be happy either way. But it's another thing all together to be directly confronted with just what I'm missing. I already get a lump in my throat when I see a newborn, or even a toddler like Frankie. So I pass when they're passing the baby.

After the meeting and a bowl of Barbie's pasta salad (not bad, but it needed pepper), the rain had slowed to a drizzle. I hopped on the tram toward home, and hopped off at the GS. I'd forgotten my grocery-store tote bag, which has handles long enough to loop over my shoulder. So I had to suffer the wrist-twisting and flimsy plastic sacks. Never mind, I thought, I can take the tram most of the way home, so I'll only really need to haul them a few blocks. As I left the store, the drizzle turned into a downpour.

Why me?

It was raining too hard to forego the umbrella, so I had to carry both sacks in one hand. By the time I got home my wrists were aching, and my fingers had lost all circulation and feeling, the tips a purplish-red. I guess I shouldn't have bought that second bottle of wine. Or the baking soda, but I really needed it and GS (a) carries it, (b) I know where they hide it, and (c) I don't get to GS that often. Oh, and they had (ta-da!) Cat Milk!

Mucked around on the internet, and even tried to write but my hands had pretty much had it for the day. It became moot, anyway, when the downpour became a full-out thunderstorm, complete with lightening and thunder and howling wind. No surge protectors, plus dodgy electricity, equals unplug everything, including the phone line. So I tried to watch a DVD I bought a while back. Dragonheart turned out to be a three-by-three type of move: that is, three beers (preferably Guiness) before you even start to watch it, plus a copious supply of the same throughout. Aside from its innate cheesiness, the peasants are way too clean. The nobility, too for that matter. I seriously doubt that the peons ironed their rags before trotting off to work on the chain-gang. And, people, NOBODY wore nail polish in 984AD. Puh-lease.

I stuck it out just long enough to eat my dinner and try to play catch-up with some wine, then Elvis called from work and we decided to go to Mardi Gras. He wanted to go to The Pub, which is close to his office, but there was no way I was going to haul my ass all the way up there in that rain.

Tommy was in a fantastic mood. There was a birthday party up on the first floor for a pair of seventeen-year-old twins. Their rich parents had rented out the whole floor for twice what Tommy usually pulls in on a Friday night. Quite fortuitous, given that it was still bucketing down outside and the streets had started to flood. His only regret was that he hadn't asked for more; apparently the Rich Parent hadn't even blinked when he named the sum it would take to close down the entire floor on one of the busiest nights of the week, just pulled out the checkbook then and there. Of course, that meant us "adults" had to put up with a string of teenagers parading through the place, but they all pretty much headed upstairs and stayed there. And it was fun to hear Tommy point out varioius teens and name their parents. "See that guy? His dad owns (name of a very famous soccer team)."

Junior, suffice it to say, will not be playing on Daddy's team when he grows up. He had quite the fashion sense, though.

Gabriella was there. I haven't seen her in ages, so that was nice. I like her, even though she's one of those touchy-feely girly-girl types. She's so sweet. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed chatting with her. Wonder what she's been up to? Didn't get a chance to ask, as her sister's lip got split open-- lots of blood-- by an errant elbow in the crowd downstairs. Usually downstairs doesn't get too terribly crowded until very late, but the first floor had been colonized by teenagers, which left them no place else to go. It was an accident though, and she'll be all right.

We had a good time, though, and stayed far later than we usually do. Haven't stayed at the MG that late, in fact, since the S&S show left town. Oh wait, I lie. We did stay that late after the last Happy Hour. Forgot about that one. It had stopped raining by the time we left. Until we had gone about a block, that is, and the heavens opened and we got dumped on.